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PGGM, the €128bn Dutch pension-fund manager, has completed its takeover of the €7.5bn fund for the country's doctors, expanding its asset-management services as a result, as consolidation in the Netherlands' €800bn pensions sector continues.

PGGM said today it was taking full 100% ownership of Doctors Pension Fund Services, the administrator and asset manager of the Stichting Pensioenfonds voor Huisartsen, or SPH, which caters to 16,000 general practitioners.

DPFS had been co-owned by PGGM and SPH since late 2011, when the two first said they would work together. PGGM has been increasing its stake gradually since then.

Parts of SPH's portfolio, such as its investments in property, infrastructure and private equity, were transferred to PGGM's management during 2012.

Today the pension funds said a newly-formed PGGM department, to be known as External Segregated Mandates, will take over responsibility for SPH's investments in liquid markets such as stocks and bonds, and oversee its relationships with underlying asset managers.

A spokeswoman for PGGM said: "The new department will be responsible for selection and monitoring of external asset managers in liquid markets (equities and debt) for segregated mandates. SPH is the first customer for this service."

She said that in the future, PGGM planned to roll out the service to other pension funds.

In a statement this morning, Dick Willemse, chairman of the SPH, said the deal was "a collaboration between the knowledge and experience of DPFS as an executive for occupational pensions, embedded in the robustness and scalability of a large public administrator such as PGGM." He said SPH was now "much more future-proof".

Arjen van Amerongen, the chief executive of DPFS, said: "The pension world is becoming increasingly complex, and maintaining expertise is becoming increasingly important. Now that the employees of DPFS are becoming part of PGGM, this is easier."

The takeover completes a process begun in 2009, when SPH parted company with the €5.6bn pension scheme for medical consultants, SPMS. The two schemes were formerly co-owners of DPFS, but SPMS sold out of the pension-fund management company and employed BlackRock as an external 'fiduciary manager'.

In the wake of that deal, SPH said it needed to find a "strong strategic partner", and unveiled the collaboration with PGGM in October of 2011.

PGGM Investments is the in-house fund manager for the €124bn healthcare workers' scheme, known as Pensioenfonds Zorg en Weljin, which is the Netherlands' second largest. It also manages four other smaller pension schemes.

In October, it announced a formal merger with the €535m pension fund for artists and theatre performers, Stichting Pensioenfonds Cultuur, a move that helped minimise planned cuts to members' pensions. PGGM had been managing its assets since 2010.

Dutch pension funds, under pressure from low interest rates, have been merging and consolidating to cut costs and win efficiencies of scale. Last month, the €150m fund for the concrete-processing industry, known as BpfMortel, said it would merge with the €35bn pension fund for the Dutch building industry BpfBOUW.